What Consciousness is.

The whole article is www.wisdomdome.com...

Consciousness is what gives us the ability to perceive and to be aware of ourselves, our bodies, and our surroundings. Consciousness is awareness, it’s truth, and it is the ability to interact and respond to the universe that envelopes us. It’s what makes you who you are, and it’s what makes me who I am. Without consciousness we wouldn’t have creativity, we wouldn’t have logic, and we wouldn’t have the ability to think and interact with each other and with the physical world around us.

So to be conscious is to be aware. Aware of what? Technically, aware of everything and anything. Anything that you’re aware of is in fact a part of your consciousness. Right now you are conscious of this article. You are also conscious of the fact that you want to educate yourself on understanding consciousness. Let’s look at the word consciousness a little differently, surely you are aware of this article, the computer monitor that you’re reading it on, and the mouse and keyboard in front of you. Let’s focus on what you may not be conscious of;

Are you conscious of your thoughts? What makes you think certain things or certain ways? Why do you get upset? Why do you have certain fears?
Are you conscious of your actions? Why are you doing the things that you’re doing? This could be your job, your hobbies, even your mannerisms.
Are you conscious of your reactions? Why are you reacting the way that you’re reacting to a certain situation? Are you conscious of your self? What are you? Who are you? Why are you here?

Consciousness is what you are. You are consciousness. You may think that you are your body, that you’re a physical, material, fleshy, bipedal human, but the truth is that without consciousness your body is literally just that – a body, a thing, an object. Without consciousness your body is lifeless, inanimate, and unresponsive. When somebody gets knocked unconscious after bumping their head too hard or through some other way, they’re lifeless and inanimate and unaware of the physical world. They’re still alive, their heart is still beating and their organs are still working, they just have no consciousness – which is why they’re unable to move and unable to perceive the physical world.

While we all have a certain amount, or a certain level of consciousness; of awareness, some people accept their current level of consciousness and don’t bother seeking to expand it. They don’t contemplate their consciousness, they don’t question the nature of reality, they don’t seek answers beyond what lies within their direct physical and material awareness. They don’t question who they are, why they do what they do, why they think the way that they think – they just accept their current level of consciousness and live their lives. There can be many reasons for this – maybe “thinking big” scares them, maybe they think that answering these questions are impossible, maybe they just don’t care, or maybe they’re just conditioned into believing certain things and thinking certain ways. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with this and you can certainly get by and live your life with any level of consciousness, but it’s advantageous on many levels to seek for conscious growth and expansion.

Some people naturally have higher levels of consciousness than other people, just like some people are naturally better speakers – but that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve and expand it. You don’t need to know what consciousness is or actively expand your consciousness in order to grow and develop it because whether you realize it or not, your consciousness is constantly growing and expanding or shrinking every day, depending on your choices and the way that you live your life; however, consciously putting in effort allows you to be more aware and to grow more effectively and at a significantly faster rate and assures that you’re not actually losing progress.. As long as you want to develop yourself as a person and strive for personal development, then you’re developing your consciousness.

Let’s try something just for fun, just to give you a real feeling of what consciousness is – let’s form a list of things that you’re probably not conscious of right now, and you’ll notice that as you read you instantly become conscious of each thing that I mention. Focus your consciousness on the feeling of your toes. Focus your consciousness on the feeling of what your fingers are touching. Focus your consciousness on the feeling of your eyebrows. Focus your consciousness on the feeling of your tongue. See how your consciousness shifts? As you read this article, you don’t really pay attention to any of those things, but once you’re aware of them you “remember” that they’re there and that they’re a part of you. That is consciousness. You are consciousness!

A limited consciousness is a limited life.

Expanding your consciousness is like discovering a new area. If you’ve never left your house and have never been outside then you couldn’t even begin to imagine what exists outside. One day, you walk outside and you discover a...

www.wisdomdome.com...

I really like the part they talk about your toes and tongue and fingers. You dont really remember that they are part of you until you focus on them, so I can see how the whole "we are all one" thing makes sense, we all just forget and cant feel it anymore... well, we might be able to feel it but most of us would probably just feel it on a subconscious level.

Personally ive been meditating a lot and I get a slight sense of oneness, but its not really as much as I would like it to be. I think its more so on an intellectual level. I want to feel super connected but I guess that will come with practice. Do you think that we can all experience oneness by expanding our consciousness and really striving to feel that connection again or do you think that its something that only certain people will get to experience?

As for now, only certain people will have the experience.
Nevertheless, humanity is breaking new grounds in consciousness.. every moment.
I don't know if it will be in our lifetime.. but, one day, everyone on earth will know.

Originally posted by OhNoItsCritical
I really like the part they talk about your toes and tongue and fingers. You dont really remember that they are part of you until you focus on them, so I can see how the whole "we are all one" thing makes sense, we all just forget and cant feel it anymore... well, we might be able to feel it but most of us would probably just feel it on a subconscious level.

Personally ive been meditating a lot and I get a slight sense of oneness, but its not really as much as I would like it to be. I think its more so on an intellectual level. I want to feel super connected but I guess that will come with practice. Do you think that we can all experience oneness by expanding our consciousness and really striving to feel that connection again or do you think that its something that only certain people will get to experience?

That part with the toes and fingers is a neat example of how nothing is real until we realize it within our consciousness. Robert Lanza's theories that reality is created by consciousness really hits home when you follow through that example...

Certainly, any one of us can experience the "oneness" as you say and feel "connected". It is a choice we can make if we want to. However when I say choice, it is actually the easiest yet at the same time, the hardest choice to follow through on. A testament to how our busy-body minds are sometimes our worst enemy. Eckhart Tolle provides some tools that I found easy to use to help achieve that oneness (or quietness). If you can shut off your mind for a moment, and become totally present in the "now", you can start to experience what that "connected oneness" could be like.

Originally posted by IronDogg

Originally posted by OhNoItsCritical
I really like the part they talk about your toes and tongue and fingers. You dont really remember that they are part of you until you focus on them, so I can see how the whole "we are all one" thing makes sense, we all just forget and cant feel it anymore... well, we might be able to feel it but most of us would probably just feel it on a subconscious level.

Personally ive been meditating a lot and I get a slight sense of oneness, but its not really as much as I would like it to be. I think its more so on an intellectual level. I want to feel super connected but I guess that will come with practice. Do you think that we can all experience oneness by expanding our consciousness and really striving to feel that connection again or do you think that its something that only certain people will get to experience?

That part with the toes and fingers is a neat example of how nothing is real until we realize it within our consciousness. Robert Lanza's theories that reality is created by consciousness really hits home when you follow through that example...

ugh

So you have no toes or fingers until you sit there and contemplate them?

C'mon man, for chrissake you can't actually believe that. Insisting on that "nothing is real until we realize it within our consciousness" notion has to be the most self-centered personality disorder manifestation that I've ever encountered. You are not the center of reality. Trust me. I existed long before you ever imagined my existence as a result of this thread post. If you honestly believe otherwise, then you're absolutely confused about the subject of Metaphysics, and all the circus clown crap that the con artists are preaching - as we come closer and closer to the big 2012 whatever-it'll-be date - is going to have you tide up in knots.

You exist within the confines of reality. You aren't the master of reality.

reply to post by NorEaster


It has not been proved that anything exists outside of your awareness, so don't be so hard on the poster.
If you can provide me with evidence or some known scientist who actually states that anything has ever been experienced outside of experience i would be intrigued.

reply to post by OhNoItsCritical

Very well written article they had written. This also brings up the case of the Unconsciousness. Dreams are apart of it. It states consciousness is being aware, so this would have to mean the Unconsciousness is not awareness. This can be aruged about lucid dreaming; where one is aware that they are dreaming.

reply to post by NorEaster


Calm down, I never said, nor did the article that they didnt exist. The both of us said that theyre simply not conscious of them.

Reading comprehension is a valuable skill.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

It has not been proved that anything exists outside of your awareness, so don't be so hard on the poster.
If you can provide me with evidence or some known scientist who actually states that anything has ever been experienced outside of experience i would be intrigued.

Are you kidding? Scientists insist that reality exists aside of its own observation by a human mind. It's the voodoo metaphysicists who are claiming that human consciousness is primordial, and they got that foolishness from a handful of philosophers who never proved that notion - instead simply presenting arguments that they and a percentage of their fellow navel-gazers felt satisfied with.

You want proof? How's this? You existed long before you ever realized your own existence as an independent observer of your own self. The Observed Mind - as it is called - must be able to observe something that exists already. If the observed thing is observed, it must have prior existence before it can be noticed and/or observed by the observer. Simple and clean, and good luck debunking that with a convoluted argument. That said, the observer must come into physical manifestation before it can observe. That being the case, how does the observer emerge if it must be observed to become real? Especially to itself? It certainly can't observe itself if it doesn't exist until it is observed. And if it is only real to that which observes it, then at what point does the observer break free of the reality constraints of the initial observer and become its own point of observation?

Hell, do you have any idea at all what kinds of logical fallacies are required to embrace that crippled tenet? The notion is an absolute trainwreck.

reply to post by NorEaster


Show me some science report saying that objects exist independantly.
Nothing can be seen without an obsever so you will never prove it.

Originally posted by OhNoItsCritical
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Calm down, I never said, nor did the article that they didnt exist. The both of us said that theyre simply not conscious of them.

Reading comprehension is a valuable skill.

I agree. The article never did say that. The poster I addressed with my post DID say that. See how crazy it can get if someone takes a snippet, tosses out a name like Robert Lanza as reference, and runs off a cliff with it? Read his post, and you'll see why I addressed it as I did. Then read the post that I posted my 2nd replay to. Another one asking me to show me some science report saying that objects exist independently. As if any scientific report has ever suggested anything that contradicts the notion that reality exists independent of the conscious perception of that reality.

This forum is read by a lot of people, and it amazes me the kind of complete garbage that is presented here as proven fact. I envision some teenager who's just become fascinated in the very important field of Metaphysics coming here and reading some of this magic-mountain crap and walking off on ever taking the field seriously again. This field needs more sober, serious thinkers. Not more hairbrained carnival barkers.

reply to post by NorEaster


You stated quite clearly that "Scientists insist that reality exists aside of its own observation by a human mind".
And now i ask you to show me.

You are saying that it is a fact that objects exist independantly of an obsever, are you sure it is a fact? Are you promoting facts?

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

You stated quite clearly that "Scientists insist that reality exists aside of its own observation by a human mind".
And now i ask you to show me.

You're kidding...right? Scientists who study evolution insist that reality existed long before the human mind ever emerged. Christ. If you can't see the inference there, then I can't help you.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

You stated quite clearly that "Scientists insist that reality exists aside of its own observation by a human mind".
And now i ask you to show me.

You are saying that it is a fact that objects exist independantly of an obsever, are you sure it is a fact? Are you promoting facts?

edit on 10-12-2011 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

I am promoting facts. The direct inferences and implications of that specific fact are scattered all around us.

Explain how an observer can exist prior to its own initial observation, and how that fact doesn't debunk your observer creates reality notion. Good luck.

reply to post by NorEaster


Those objects aren't existing though are they? Does something that supposedly existed 5 thousand years ago exist now?
I am talking about outside of your awareness, can you say that something definitetly exists out side of your awareness? Do objects exist outside of consciousness? It can not be proven.

reply to post by NorEaster


An obsever does not exist until it exists and then it can observe.
The observer is present before anything can be observered.
But really the observer is always present, it does not exist as such it just is.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

An obsever does not exist until it exists and then it can observe.
The observer is present before anything can be observered.
But really the observer is always present, it does not exist as such it just is.

edit on 10-12-2011 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

That statement is suggesting that the observer exists as real before it can observe. And yet, nothing exists as real until it is observed. The two assertions contradict each other.

so, the observer is nothing?

reply to post by NorEaster


The observer is nothing, yes!
But the observer can not be denied.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Those objects aren't existing though are they? Does something that supposedly existed 5 thousand years ago exist now?
I am talking about outside of your awareness, can you say that something definitetly exists out side of your awareness? Do objects exist outside of consciousness? It can not be proven.

edit on 10-12-2011 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

I looked at your reference link here, and I have to ask....."What objects are you referring to?"

I existed outside of your awareness for 55 years. I present myself as living proof that your awareness of my existence had no impact on my being state. I am, and was, real, and I exist, and existed, independent of your observation of me.

Similar evidence against your assertions is overwhelming and immediately presentable.

reply to post by NorEaster


Do you believe that science has stated that objects exist independantly from an observer?
Is it your belief that a world exists independantly from you?

reply to post by NorEaster


So one thing you know for sure is that you exist. But can you be sure that anything does when you are not there?